How Stressed Is Cruella?

Y'all, Cruella is so stressed from this whole law-school-final crap! Cruella just cannot count how many babies Cruella is going to have to hold to get over it, but a whole lot, so when Cruella comes to your house and asks to hold your baby- that would be why.

Cruella, aren't you smart? Don't you have like, a house full of books and you can use the word "hagiography" in a sentence, and you know what someone from Manchester is called, so why is this so hard?

Because- undergrad finals are, you study a subject for the semester, and you sit down and what's on the final is what you studied that semester, so if you paid attention and did the assignments, you're fine.

Law school, on the other hand, you really have no idea what could appear or what the questions could be about. I would write abotu what happened but the exam period is not quite over so I can't but I am pretty sure I flunked bankruptcy, which is bizarre, because I enjoyed the class, but my nervousness- anyway. I thought there would have been a stay question on there, but there didn't seem to be.

Cruella, what the hell are you talking about?

Well, Ok, fine. This is what a law school final will look like, like for - well, any class, but let's say it's Torts.

Today, Gertrude Stein woke up and she was Ida. She walked to the mailbox to get herself a cup of coffee and then went back, and then she went in all directions. After that, she felt worse, so she went to Kroger's to buy herself an octopus. (note, it's not really Kroger's, it's Kroger, so analyse.) The octopus the store sold her had 6 arms and was quite vicious as a result. She came home and gave the octopus to her 2.3 children to play with. One of the children is 3, one of the children is 5, and the .3 child is 2. Ida went to the pantry, which was located in the fourth dimension through a door she had especially installed in the wall by Sears. When she arrived there, she was attacked by a clump of Daleks, who had mistaken her for a clump of geraniums Doctor Who's evil twin had cloned. She went back into the house and a bag of hammers narrowly missed her, striking a donkey which had materialised there by mistake and landing on the octopus. Ida went to bed without kissing her husband or children good night, who were later taken to Neverland by Michael Jackson disguised as Peter Pan.

So given this factual situation, you're supposed to pull out all the torts and analyse them, or in fact this could be tax law, or contracts, or anything. I don't know if that helps but there you are.

Cruella is just all different kinds of stressed: Cruella is, in fact, so stressed that Cruella :

DOES NOT FEEL LIKE DRINKING

REALLY! NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT! That is how stressed Cruella is.

Also, I heard a Budweiser advertisement on the radio, and I thought, that sounded good! And I am no longer afraid to ride in the Dismobile. Therefore, I am losing it.

Now I have been doing Things to get over this, like the other day I took a "brake" from bankruptcy to help my friend do his Brakes. That gives you an idea of how I relieve stress. It was actually quite stress relieving since I rather directed and dragged out tools and didn't do too much of the- no wait, I did. Never mind. It was an even-handed endeavour.

Other things I have done recently to relieve stress:

Commit IIED on Alex, and I have a new Plot to do so.

Hold THREE babies at ONCE, that was very stress relieving; Olivia (no dammit, it shouldn't have an h, and I refuse) took pictures of this but Sandi has not yet emailed them to me.

Go to Nashville and cook and see Robin

Garden

Robin does not understand what is really going on. I keep trying to tell him that all law students are unloveable during finals. It's the sheer uncertainty of the thing that is really overwhelming. Robin seems to think this is something I am doing just to be difficult.

No, if it were possible to spontaneously combust, it would have happened. Seriously. All law students are unloveable during finals: a fair number of them are unloveable most of the time, I am thinking of two in particular I just Do. Not. Like., but I am very much trying to control this. There are a lot of things I have NOT said or done. So I am trying not to be Unloveable, but it is hard.

O I have a joke for y'all, courtesy of KaplanJulie!

They said that pigs would fly when we elected our first black president, so 100 days after Obama's inauguration, swine flu.

Ha ha!

What is in Nashville that you always want to go there? asked Dad.

Anyhow two weekends ago I went to Nashville and the highlight for me of going to Nashville (at least the reprintable highlights) is what did I cook. I can also tell you about some other things that happened.

Robin has now decided he should read my blog, since I spend a fair amount of time writing about him on it.

We did some play but not very much and we went and saw the Bicentennial Mall and we went to the used Book store.

Nashville has a MUCH better used bookstore than Atlanta does, and I am thinking of the one Daniel peed in. They even have- get this- FREE books- which, that just excites me no end. Robin we think is not so enamoured of the bookstore, but- there are worse things in life, we think, than the pursuit of knowledge. I did convince him to take a free book which was called "Object Lessons" which had little Bible lessons and was somewhat similar to a book he had given me, which I did read, something about the Holy Spirit I think.

Anyway, have you ever noticed that used book people look funny? The clientele there- and this was not true for all of them, certainly not true for myself and Robin- but a large percentage of them look like they grew up underground or something. They tend to be bulky, glasses wearing, and Kmart shopping.

Now Robin and I have matching t-shirts which say " the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" For some reason people only noticed and commented on his.

I bought a whole LOT of books, which he did not seem to like much, and I cooked pork loin with orange sauce, no comatose potatoes but bow-tie pasta with pesto and bow-tie pasta with prosciutto and peas and tacos al pastor (which turned out inedibly spicy) and regular tacos and flourless chocolate cake and asparagus with orange hollandaise sauce.

O and y'all I encouraged Amber to read my blog but I think I will go back and edit one of those entries because I said some things I would- no.

Anyway how did I commit IIED on Alex?

Well months ago I stole some of his clothes as part of a Plot against him. I still have not been able to find anyone else to participate in this Plot though.

Then since it was his birthday I thought I would horrify him by wearing his own clothes.

Alex was agog in horror when I came up the walk. He had totally not expected this turn of events. I did get him two bags of fireworks, which I purchased on the Cruella gift plan which is buy someone something as a gift that they really want and would not purchase for themselves, like I got Dad that aquarium.

I really wish I had pictures of this to show y'all but somehow I think because Alex was so Emotionally Distressed pictures did not get taken. Anyhow this is unlikely to happen again because Alex's clothes are uncomfortable and look stupid. I felt like I was going to have a Forrest Gump moment any minute.

And Alex had a cookout, which we thought was rather lacking in the extremely drunk department, and that was good, and I got him a card which said, In dog years you're dead,

None of the fireworks were actually exploded.

Also, Bob provided us with absinthe, which after having drunk- I do not understand the need for banning it. It's totally impossible to drink enough of the stuff to go mad. It tasted TERRIBLE. And I understand that you are supposed to do all kinds of things- basically like crack- where you pour it over a sugar cube and put the sugar cube in a spoon and then set it on fire and then throw it at someone you don't like- But I think drinking should taste good without a whole lot of bother, right? I mean, you might be drunk, and are certainly headed that way, so the last thing you need is to be folding tab A into slot B and doing the hokey pokey or whatever to get a damn drink. Rum and coke, that's what I say, or Gin and- well, straight over ice.

Absinthe, in case you are curious but your curiosity does not exceed the $60 price tag, tastes like a particularly vile form of licorice.

I will remember this for my teenagers, if I ever catch them drinking underage (yah Cruella! you like LIVED to underage drink! Hypocrite!) I will force them to drink an entire bottle of absinthe in one sitting. It was extremely anise flavoured, plus some additional dimensions of vile, like- seriously!

It was like the Fourth Dimension of Vile.

Well, first I had some straight, which was horrible but- the alcohol taste improved the vileness, actually, then since I/we did not like it, Bob prepared us a drink with it in lemonade, which was EVEN WORSE. There was more of it and the vile taste of it was even more pronounced.

I just do not understand this! The French are famous for drinks- that- taste good? right? Wine, let's start with wine- and then champagne, brandy, Cointreau, various beers, - and then they come up with this, and Pastis, which- I was passed some Pastis once, unsuspecting, and responded by immediately barfing all over the wall. Y'all these are fraternity pranks gone way too far.

I would honestly rather eat a fairly large dead bug than consume any more Absinthe, or even a fairly large live one. It's clearly intended as some sort of punishment.

Diamonds aren't forever, the aftertaste of absinthe is.

Then Ian and Trey Norwood went to a titty bar, which I do not understand the appeal of that. Yes, I know I am not interested in titties but- that's like going to a restaurant where you can smell the food, see the food, but you can't eat the food. That would just get me worked up and anxious, and frustrated. So I talked Alex and Amber into driving me home, because they were going somewhere- Amber's house, although Alex felt the need to be very cagey about this- although I could have stayed in Alex's house and committed all manner of mischief.

Also porn is readily available now, so you can just stay home and watch it and - you know. And titty bars are kinda dank places filled with the kind of musty people who live in their parents' basements and are - see the used book types.

And I want to know why do porn stores always have that weird smell, like- that funk. There's always that weird nasty fug of humidity and staleness and ew. A sort of plastics and bong smell? Cherry ammonia? I dunno.

Senior Superlatives

Y'all, I am just slap out of motivation these days, I do not have one single bit left to study or prepare or do anything. It is so sad.

I understand there are senior superlatives for law school, but what the categories actually are, I do not know. Like I bothered to find out!

But I am going to propose some new categories:

Most likely to have skid marks

Most likely to have a law enacted specifically in response to one of his/her crimes

Most likely to sleep with a senior managing partner

Most likely to sleep with a midlevel associate

Most likely to sleep with the Fed-Ex man

Most likely to sexually harass junior associates

Most likely to run ads on late night tv.

Most likely to start some long incomprehensible political scandal

Most likely to start some comprehensible political scandal involving three hookers (one of them transvestite), the Star-lite motel, gerbils, Orajel, a Black and Decker Power Sander, and a Pentacostal preacher

Most likely to go to rehab

Most likely to hook up in rehab

Most likely to marry Holly Hobbie

Most likely to write a memo for the government endorsing torture

Most likely to be a picture perfect couple whose children end up in therapy for the rest of their lives

Most likely to own vacation homes in the Ozarks

Most likely to develop a survivalist camp with a hemp based economy and guns

Most likely to quit lawyering to write really terrible novels that make piles of money

Most likely to quit lawyering to write really dry academic treatises that make no money at all

Most likely to wake up one day as a law professor and find they have turned into Stephens

Most likely to wake up one day as a law professor and find they have turned into Girth

Most likely to use the phrase, "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit"

Most likely to use the phrase, "I never had sex with that woman."

Most likely to use the phrase, "I didn't have the required mens rea to stick it ALL the way up there."

Most likely to go on television to yell at stupid people

Most likely to go home and yell at stupid people

Most likely to wander the streets of downtown yelling at stupid people

Most likely to be thrown out of court for not using his inside voice

Most likely to commit barratry

Most likely to commit champetry

Most likely to commit arson

Most likely to replace Raymond Burr in a "Perry Mason" remake

Most likely to replace Calista Flockhart in an "Ally McBeal" remake

Most likely to replace Roy Cohn in a "Sleazy Homosexual Government Lawyers" remake

Cruella Fails at Maniliness

Y'all here is Cruella fail number 1, which is, I should have been able to figure out how to make the picture not sideways, but. I am- yah, computer dumb. Actually, any technology more complicated than- no wait, I couldn't make the jack in the Cadillac work either- so any technology more complicated than- a siphon hose- I am baffled by.

Anyway y'all look at what Alex is wearing, and I am sorry to inform you that he wore this outfit on purpose, and had no compelling reason to do so.

What would be a compelling reason to do so, Cruella?

Well, like- I would wear this outfit if I knew I was going to be set on fire, or - I was going to do something extremely grimy, like mow the lawn- Cruella manages to ruin Cruellas clothes even mowing the lawn- or changing the oil in the car. But Alex had no reason, compelling or otherwise, to wear this.

And- y'all cannot see this in the picture but it looked EVEN worse in person than it did here, as in, it was all -wrinkled. Alex looked like he was all set to compete in the Bumlympics. The 40 oz drink em up! Yuk.

And I BOUGHT him new clothes, NICE clothes, and he refuses to wear them. No, I do not know why! I have some theories though, but one can't have nostalgie de la boue without being OUT of the boue. And ugly clothes aren't more comfortable than nice looking clothes.

Now y'all will realise, that Cruella's Manliness Fail is not exactly News. I am not saying I am the least manly guy around- unlike one person I know, I never drove a triple white Rabbit convertible- Those are only stick shift, if you know what I mean- ease it into first with a little lube, you know? But there was that time Robin and I were playing- and he hiked the football to me, and I was supposed to run.
It was- - - I threw up my hands and sashayed forward like Zsa Zsa Gabor escaping the Martians. So yah.

Well, this week, I have wanted to do everything on Earth except study Corporate Finance, so- finally, y'all know that a tree fell on my house in like, August? And it has been lying back there? And I have done nothing about it because- well, I have been "busy" meaning I have spent my weekends with Robin or car drama or occasionally, with actual schoolwork, or it has been bad weather. Or I had to do something like can mustard.

Besides, y'all, this was a Project, involving rental of a chainsaw and Spencer's help, and Spencer had to additionally enlist the help of some rather smelly compatriot of his named Reginald.

At first I was a little irked because here is Spencer- the yard guy! being all managerial and delegating his duties. He is efficiently outsourcing, believe it or not, and if you knew Spencer this would be even more unbelievable. I'm like, what right does he have to delegate and pay my money to someone else.

This is like the story with Chuchotte, who got her own pet cat, and she clearly regarded said cat as beneath her. At feeding times, she would go and bring this other cat, and watch it eat, and quickly shoo it away, and then return inside to eat her food. The other cat was not allowed to watch her eat, and she did not allow it inside. Cats, she thought, are not supposed to be inside, but she was not actually a cat, she thought.

Then I realised that these bits of tree were bloody heavy so yes, he needed help, but he certainly seemed to spend most of his time telling the other chap what to do. Now my backyard is full of large chunks of tree, which Spencer has said he will come and split with a log splitter at some indefinite time in the future.

This cost $150, not including the chainsaw rental, which was another $150.

Anyway, the latest Manliness test I failed was the Chainsaw test, because a tree fell in my backyard- well, last AUGUST, and I have been thinking I need to have it cuty up and so forth.

I am not really sure why I wanted to have it cut up and hauled away, no one ever goes in the backyard, there could be oil deposits there for all I know. And in retrospect, there are MANY more things I would have liked to have spent the $300 on, like- glitter maybe? Anything to horrify Alex, which does not take much; Food?

But i did, and so I had to go and rent a chainsaw.

Y'all, I was honestly- even in the chainsaw's quiescent state- not even running, I was TERRIFIED of it, like it was going to suddenly become possessed and attack me. I actually- returned it before it was due because I kinda didn't want it in my house?

This may not actually be as irrational a fear as it seems because there certainly was the incident with Scott and Guty and the ceramic frog and I certainly have tripped over many objects in my house and hurt myself. Some of those times, I was not even drunk. Or at least, not VERY drunk.

Once, I was attacked in the dark by a bookshelf.

The Home Depot man wanted me to start the chainsaw and gave me long complicated instructions about push the button and pull this thing out and then pull the string until it pops and then push the thing in and push the button and it will start and he wanted me to do it but frankly I did not want to touch it. At all.

But I managed, or Spencer and smelly compatriot sort of managed, but instead of having ONE large tree, now I have several large chunks of tree, too large for me to move by myself. I am thinking, Spencer is not coming back.

Instead of actually USING the chainsaw, which exceeded my manliness, I came up with a Motto about Chainsaws, which is:

There is no such thing as "a little hurt" when it comes to chainsaws.

Spencer came and used the chainsaw to cut up the tree, and frankly it was more difficult than it looked and I am pleased that I did not do it.

I think the level of power tools I am comfortable with is more like- electric pencil sharpener, is about as vicious exposed blade as I need to get. O, and I am very comfortable with the battery operated style of power tool.

No, I am kidding, I have worked my way past drill to jigsaw and tile saw and someday if need be I may actually use a circular saw. I can also use an electric hedge trimmer.

Also I went to the National Women Judges' Conference thing, and Judge Hatchett came to talk to us, and she had a lot of liberal bromides about intergenerational afterschool care or some such nonsense. She had a story about an 8 year old boy whose mother had abandoned him because she was on crack- and apparently her solution to this- y'all, I am not making this up- was get Uncle Fred who is retired and who wants to learn about computers to come to the school and get computer tutoring from Dylan Klebold who will teach Uncle fred instead of building bombs in his garage. Ok! Yah anyway, I don't see how that's going to help an 8 year old with a crack addict mom, he needs more help than intergenerational afterschool care, and as for the adults who are going to intergenerationally afterschool care- can you say child molester? Not a good solution. It's one of those things that people say, oh it's good in theory but I want to know if in practice it's no good then in theory, it's really kind of crap, isn't it.

And then I met a lady from Iowa who is friends with the judge who wrote the opinion which was upheld by the Supreme Court which allows Gay marriage! So that was exciting. I wonder if the people who are opposed to it realise that-

Gay Marriage: It's not mandatory, doofus.

Because seriously? How many people does it really affect? And it's not like abortion, which is murder. You can't hurt people by getting gay married. No matter how hard you try. And let me also point out that most of the people in the Bible had very UNUSUAL marriage arrangments, it's full of adulterers and people sleeping with their servants to beget children and then Mary, I'm sure Joseph was really convinced when she told him the whole an angel got me pregnant story.

And I have two lols for y'all, and the first lol is, Sandi drooled when she saw a large and unattractive beetle, as in, we saw this large beetle crawling across the floor, and yea it was black and unattractive, and had a ribbed carapace, and she shrieked, "It made me drool!"

Which is a TOTALLY normal response to a beetle.

Fat people, there's just no end to the lols!

And the second lols is that Kim asked me, did you break that chair, and this was the day of limited functionality due to only being able to wear one contact lens, instead of the more usual reasons for limited functionality, and I said, I mistook it for a sheep.

And our litigation trial is over, which is, good, um, I think the whole concept of having different points of view to better encompass a wider range of perspectives is turning out to be- just generally a bad idea.

Anyway, the lady across the street told me there is something happening here called "Frolicon" which is apparently a combination of Sci-fi/fantasy/kink (never saw that one coming, didja?) And- she was explaining to me that- among other things- they have slave/submissive competitions.

What is that? I wanted to know, how do you compete to be a slave?

Well, they have tea parties, and you have to serve tea, or you can be a boot black, she explained.

Boot blacking is a fetish? I asked.
Yes, and she did not mean bootblacking as a euphemism for something- else, like how "Ian" is a euphemism for "smelly troll-faced goatsexual with a bad case of herpes and turnip breath," she meant, literally, blacking boots, it's some intersection of submissive and foot fetish.

Well. There are lots of fetishes these days, so I am going to let all y'all keep track of them. I hope someday to meet someone HOT who has a fetish for someone who sits on the couch and reads 19th century novels and 20th century murder mysteries while putting their bare feet up on the ottoman, or someone who has a fetish for watching someone can while barefoot? Why not?

Now I did not personally witness this, so I do not know if these other fetishes exist as well, just so you know. But if I did, and won the prize for boot blacking, I would not be putting it on my resume. I might even have enough shame left not to tell you about it directly but allude to it, like that thing I did recently which was - I can cross THAT one off my list, it wasn't quite as bad as i thought- more psychologically icky than physically icky but still ew ew ew, yes, there apparently is an end to fat people lols. (unlike Alex, who does not possess enough shame to stop him from wearing above outfit) Let me also say, the intersection of science-fiction/fantasy fans, and people you- at least I- want to see naked, is very, very, very sparsely populated.

This lady and her- whatever, boyfriend? I never ask- not excepted. I don't even want to see myself naked all that much.

O and Curry and Liz had a BABY shower, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There was some discussion of car parts- brakes and calipers!- as well, this being a lesbian baby shower. They will probably get to keep their baby, as his mother is a prostitute who thankfully gave him up for adoption.

I have a lot to say about this, if you want to know.

Anyway, they got two really- I am sure there is a polite way to say this but frankly I do not care- GOOD children from DFACS, which surprised me, because I always thought that the kids that you could get from DFACS were the - I'll use their euphemism- hard to place ones, but the two they have are very nice.

And on a completely unrelated note, I always want to smack someone when they say "ink pen." What other kind of pen is there, morons? That just makes me so irritated.